How great a father's love...

What a morning we had! I had the kids' oatmeal ready for them and we were sitting down to eat. Kaiya very sweetly gave Kaleb her Elmo chair to sit in. Quite happy, he plopped right down without even glancing her way. Before feeding him, I asked him to say "thank you" to her -- or rather... sign it. We know he can do this sign, he's just very moody about signing and only does it when he wants to. So he refused. And once you go down that road, you just have to finish it. So he wasn't able to have any oatmeal until he said thank you to his sister. And the temper tantrum began. About 15 minutes in, I was starting to wonder if Tony and I had too high of expectations on this one. Was it reasonable that he should tell Kaiya thank you? I told him one more time -- "Kaleb, say thank you." He violently shook his head no. Ummm... yep. He gets it. Just being stubborn.

About 30 minutes in, we realize that he seems obsessed with having me hold him while he has his fit. So, Tony took over and I removed myself hoping that he would give it up sooner without me around. As I was busy doing things around the house I thought about poor Tony who was doing nothing but sitting with Kaleb through this stubborn fit. Then I realized how thankful I am that Tony loves his son that much. I mean -- how easy would it have been on us just to give in to the tantrum, feed the kid his oatmeal and get on with our day. Instead, Tony sat by Kaleb, keeping him propped up on the couch (so Kaleb wouldn't fall asleep) and every now and then checking in to see if he was ready to say thank you. Tuesday is one of our mornings off. And trust me, the list of things Tony needed to do was quite long. But being a good dad comes first. He helped Kaleb learn an important lesson today and I was so glad for the reminder of what a great dad my kids have.

Here's Kaiya trying to coerce her brother to say thank you. She offered him her princess doll if he would say it. Needless to say, he wasn't interested...

And here we are -- after an hour and ten minutes he finally decided to say thank you. He's happily eating his now cold oatmeal.

And as if that weren't enough... shortly after this episode I took Kaiya to the grocery store. She laid it out right in the middle of the U-Scan line at Harris Teeter. I was allowing her to help me scan some items, but she was starting to get a little violent as she chucked them on top of the scanner, so I stopped her. And she wasn't too happy about it. So not only was my 3 year old yelling at me... but the U-Scan lady inside the machine was yelling at me too. "Please take the item out of the bag and scan it." "Please see the attendant for assistance." "Please scan your item." Meanwhile, Kaiya is in a heap on the floor. I finally told her that I would finish checking out and that we would have a conversation in a minute. I paid and we moved through and sat down at the magazine rack where she got a talking to. I asked her to apologize and told her that we were going to sit there until she did. She turned her little back to me and sat there with her arms crossed for a minute or so. Then, she turned around and said, "I'm sorry." We have been encouraging her lately to say what she is sorry for, so that we know she understands why she is apologizing. So I said, "You're sorry for what?" She wrinkles up her face and says, "I dunno!!" Well, I guess we'll sit here until you remember. We sat there for 10 minutes. Finally she "remembered."

Stubborn, I tell ya!